# Why AI made code review the new bottleneck, and the metric that spotted it | Newsela's Dee Wilcox

An episode of [Dev Interrupted](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1537003676), 29 Sep 2026, 27 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1422892/episodes/19879728-why-ai-made-code-review-the-new-bottleneck-and-the-metric-that-spotted-it-newsela-s-dee-wilcox.mp3

You can't automate a planning process that only some of your teams follow. This week on Dev Interrupted, Newsela CTO Dee Wilcox joins Dan Lines, LinearB's COO and co-founder in our AI Enablement interview series. She shows how Newsela brought dev cycle time down from four days to closer to two, and why she treats code review time as a measure of how long engineers wait for feedback. They close the conversation on proving AI ROI to the board, where Dan makes the case for cost per effective PR, a metric that only counts the PRs that ship without causing incidents or needing rework. Save your seat: What your software factory is doing to your engineers Follow the show: • Subscribe to our Substack • Follow us on LinkedIn • Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Follow the hosts: • Follow Andrew • Follow Ben • Follow Dan Follow today's guest: • Learn more about Newsela: https://newsela.com • Accelerate Everyone: Dee's Substack on engineering leadership https://accelerateeveryone.substack.com • Connect with Dee: LinkedIn OFFERS • Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free. • Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era. LEARN ABOUT LINEARB • AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production. • AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance. • AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil. • MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.